Esther 6

Chap. VI. Ver. 1—14. Ahasuerus, not being able to sleep, was the chronicles of his kingdom read, which mention the services of Mordecai: Haman, coming in the morning, is made the instrument of rewarding him.—On a certain night, king Ahasuerus could not sleep. Henry here pertinently remarks: “His sleep fled away, (so the word is:) the more carefully he pursued it, the farther it went. Sometimes we cannot sleep because we fain would. Even after a banquet of wine he could not sleep, when Providence had a design to serve in keeping him awake. We read of no bodily indisposition he was under, that might break his sleep; but God, whose gift sleep is, withheld it from him. Those that are never so much resolved to cast away care, cannot always do it; they find it in their pillows when they neither expect nor welcome it. He that commanded one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, could not command one hour’s sleep.”

_ The king’s wakefulness is not only the saving Mordecai’s life, but the means of his being rewarded. Haman comes to court early in the morning to request that Mordecai may be hanged; but before he can open his mouth to make the request, the king puts a question, which he very naturally, from the king’s recent partialities, supposes can refer to no other than himself: “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” Under the impression just named, Haman advises the highest honours he could think of; but what a thunderclap must have been the king’s reply: “Make haste, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew.” — ‘Where the word of a king is, there is power;” and death is the instant penalty of disobedience.

Away therefore he goes, and, with trembling voice and limbs, hurries through the dreadful task of honouring the man whom he meant to hang. He then hastens home to bewail his fate; but, before he has time to do this, the king’s chamberlains come to hurry him to the banquet, for which he was ill prepared, and which he must have attended with a heavy heart.

Notes on the verses

Chap. VI. Ver. 1. The book of records.—{As chronicles were composed among the Persians, a more instructive and interesting work could not be brought before the king; because they were all written in verse, and were generally the work of the most eminent poets of the empire. They are written in this way to the present time; and the famous epic poem of Ferdoosy, the Homer of Persia, is nothing else than a collection of chronicles, brought down from the creation to the reign of Mohammed Ghezny, in the beginning of the tenth century. Even our rough English ancestors had their poetic chronicles; and, among many, the chronicle of Robert of Gloucester is proof in point.] — B. Ver. 8. Which the king useth to wear.—This was a special favour.

See note on (1 Samuel 18:4). and compare (Genesis 41:42). — The horse, &c.—[Herodotus relates, that the kings of Persia had horses peculiar to themselves, which were brought from Armenia, and were remarkable for their beauty; and, if the same law prevailed in Persia as in Judea, no man, under the penalty of death, might ride on the king’s horse, any more than sit on his throne, wear his crown, or hold his yess ] — Bagster. — And the crown royal — Vr. Gill asserts, (upon Rabbinical authority, we presume) that it was usual to have “the crown royal” placed upon the head of a horse, led in state before the king, which he thinks was now done before Mordecai. Ver. 11. Through the streets.—| Pitts gives a similar account of the mode of honouring a person, who turns a Mohammedan, at Algiers: “The apostate is to get on a stately steed, with a rich saddle, and fine trappings: he is also richly habited, and has a turban on his head, but nothing of this is to be called his own; only there are given him about two or three yards of broad cloth, which is laid before him on the saddle.

‘The horse, with him on his back, is led all round the city, which he is several hours in doing. The apostate is attended with drums and other music, and twenty or thirty sergeants. They march in order on each side of the horse, with naked swords in their hands. The crier goes before, with a loud voice giving thanks to God for the proselyte that is made.” } — Bagster. 7